The 1st Battalion spent the first two years of its existence in England while the 2nd Battalion was sent to Gibraltar and Bahrain. Both battalions spent much of the
1970s and 1980s serving with the British Army of the Rhine in Germany and on garrison duties in England.

There were deployments to the Falkland Islands (1983) and Cyprus with United Nations peace-keeping forces (1976, 1977 and 1991) and the Rangers also served as
fire-fighters in 1977 during the national strike by firemen. Tours of Northern Ireland followed for both battalions in 1988 and 1990.